1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the general method of updating the delivery/stock status of mailboxes, shelves, sorter bins, and a plurality of bins located at Post Offices, Companies or shelf space at supermarkets, department stores, and reporting to the respective owners, recipients and/or vendors of these boxes via email, pager, PDA, cellular phone message system, website mailboxes and voice mail at a call center. The invention can be implemented at the Post Office mailboxes, company mailboxes, apartment mailboxes, store shelves at supermarkets, department stores, etc. The update information is to alert the recipient via email, pager or voice mail when any mails or articles are delivered to their mailboxes currently or the shelves with certain items are empty or close to empty and need inventory replenishment and management.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Previous devices involve the use of mechanical trigger mechanisms to the doors and hinges of mailboxes. The device described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,839 involves a mechanical visible indicator to show the delivery status. Such devices will not be able to provide remote delivery status far from the mailbox site and do not address the case of thousands of mailboxes with their recipients"" locations remote and dispersed all over the world. Another example of this type of device including a magnet is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,482. A drawback of these type of door trigger mechanism is that while they indicate that a door has been opened, this does not imply actual mail delivery.
A device described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,282 uses an audible or visual signal to indicate the delivery. It is achieved by using a control box that has a DC circuit activated by the delivery site which in turn controls an AC circuit which allows a receptacle to turn on its power. This electrical receptacle can power an electric appliance to signal the recipient. This system does not signal outside of the immediate area.
In the reproduction industry, multiple copies of printed sheets are sorted into bins for job separation. They are fitted with an integral optical transmitter/receivers unit to distinguish which of the bins are still empty and available in response to the respective electrical bin empty signals. This is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,328,169. Because printer sorters are designed to handle paper, they cannot be used with arbitrarily shaped packages, objects, or fluids. Nor are printer sorters capable of handling thousands of bins at once. Such demands are not faced by the copy reproduction industries.
In the peripheral equipment industry, equipment requires monitoring and maintenance. The equipment may be a PBX or ACD, and there is an interface device that converts the output from the equipment to email messages so that a technician at a remote site can be informed. This type of interface device and an email interpreter are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,070. This costly interface email device has to be present at every piece of equipment that requires monitoring. Its design would not be suitable to the monitoring of thousands of simple bins. Thus, it is limited in the total number of bins.
In the arena of managing delivery of goods U.S. Pat. No. 6,085,170 describes a system that is designed for supporting delivery of purchased goods or commodities from a distribution center to the purchaser. This system tracks deliveries by way of bar code or smart card requiring the production of a special marker.
The invention relates to the method of information updating the many diverse clients the status of the delivery and/or quantifying the articles located in a site with many mailboxes/bins/containers. This is performed through the use of sensors, flexible circuit boards, distributed microcontrollers capable of scanning the sensor information and reporting its status through a common bus and identifying its electronic address, and sending this information to a master controller which directly collects all information and serially updates a computer system. In turn, this computer system has relational database containing email address, pager address, personal digital assistant address (PDA), cellular phone address, call center addresses, preferably web sites or the like, such that the client can use the information for a pick up or determine an order to be placed for inventory management.
The scanning of information is performed at a regular or preset rate or activated upon delivery and allows an accurate report on the status of these mailboxes/bins/containers located remotely, and their unrelated customers or vendors distributed over vastly dispersed geographical locations and time zones. These customers/vendors can also be mobile while information is updated. This also has the capability of frequently reprogramming the report information, customer list, or locations from another remote facility. Customers can also call to a call center with its Personal Identification Number (PIN) or other forms of authentication to retrieve a voice mail of the status.
In the scenario of an inventory management system, this reporting can be tied to the vendor that supplies the merchandise and update the status of the supplier""s inventory system to initiate delivery.
Therefore its ability to report and reprogram from a remote facility allows the system to be maintained, reroute the information reliably, and keep its function versatile.
The invention includes notifying recipients of objects in mailboxes, bins and shelves by a system that preferably includes a sensor, a flexible circuit board, a mailbox address identifier, an embedded subsystem data collection center, a computing device with wireless modem or cable modem and a database containing email addresses, pager addresses, phone mail addresses, website URLs, Call Center database and a program to direct the delivery status to these locations. The notification may be in broadcast mode. This enables multiple recipients to receive the delivery status simultaneously without addition cost.
A preferred embodiment of the claimed invention may be used to with a plurality of vending machines. In such an embodiment, the vending machines preferably provide notification of their inventory status, including whether restocking is required.
The mailboxes, bins, and shelves may be spaces where item is stored temporarily or permanently having no innate active signaling capability of its own content. The sensors provide active identification of letters, parcels, merchandise and objects of various shapes, sizes and materials.
An embedded system data collection device receives signals from the sensors and relays the signals to a central processor. The data collection device may be a microcontroller based device that reads a corresponding delivery state from each bin and sends a detailed combined state report to a central computing device with a standard protocol including bin address information. The serial RS232, RS485, Universal Serial Bus (USB), and IEEE-1394 Firewire busses are useful for the final stage reporting from the aggregate processor to a computer such as a personal computer, single board computer, or embedded processor. The aggregate processor can be a CAN processor having both CAN bus and RS232/RS485/USB/IEEE-1394 Firewire bus on the same micro-controller. The USB and IEEE-1394 firewire are preferable, as they can transfer high speed data as fast as 12 Mbits/s and 400 Mbits/s respectively, but any of the busses mentioned herein are allowable.
The computing device may include a wireless modem or cable modem. The computer may be a personal computer or embedded microcontroller system with sufficient memory to store and run an application program capable of sending email, voice mail, and pager mail. In the cases of email or two-way pagers, a choice of acknowledgement can be done. This will confirm that recipient has acknowledged and the date stamp is in place.
According to a preferred embodiment, a system for notifying of the presence or absence of an object or fluid is presented. The system includes a plurality of containers and a plurality of sensor units. Each sensor unit is associated with one of the containers, and each sensor unit includes at least one sensor configured to detect the presence or absence of the object or fluid within the container. At least one microcontroller is connected to some of the plurality of sensor units. A computer is connected to the microcontroller. A signaling mechanism is connected to the computer, the signaling mechanism being configured to provide an alert in response to the presence or absence of the object or fluid in each of the plurality of containers.
Various optional and preferable features of the above embodiment include a bus assemblage interposed between the microcontroller and the computer. The bus assemblage preferably includes a first level bus operating at a first speed connected to the microcontroller, and a second level bus operating at a second speed interposed between the first level bus and the computer. The first speed is preferably different from the second speed. The system may include a master embedded controller interposed between the computer and the microcontroller. The system preferably includes a receiving mechanism capable of receiving the alert. The receiving mechanism may be an email receiver, a web message center, a wireless telephone, a land line telephone, a SMS messaging device, a pager, a personal digital assistant, a broadcast receiver, or a voice mailbox. The sensor is preferably an optical sensor, a light sensor, a pressure sensor, a weight sensor, a capacitance sensor, a magnetic sensor, a hall effect sensor, a float sensor, a heat sensor, a temperature sensor, a motion sensor, or an acoustic sensor. The sensor unit preferably includes a flexible circuit board. The sensor unit is preferably associated with a unique address. Preferably, the system includes a database containing data representing an email address, a pager address, a personal digital assistant address, a cellular phone number, a call center address, or a web site URL, and the signaling mechanism provides an alert consistent with the data. Preferably, each of said sensor units is configured to identify at least one property of the object or fluid, where the property is preferably one of size, shape, weight, dielectric properties, magnetic properties, and volume.
According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a method for notifying of the presence or absence of an object or fluid is presented. A container configured to hold an object or a fluid is presented. A sensor unit associated with the container senses the presence or absence of an object or fluid. In response to said sensing, a first signal is forwarded to a microcontroller connected to the sensor unit. In response to the first signal, a second signal is sent from the microcontroller to a computer. An alert in response to the second signal is provided, where the alert is indicative of the presence or absence of the object or fluid.
Various optional and preferable features of above embodiment include that the sending includes sending the second signal at a first speed on a first level bus connected to the microcontroller; and sending the second signal at a second speed different from the first speed on a second level bus interposed between the first level bus and the computer. The sending preferably includes sending to a master embedded controller interposed between the computer and the microcontroller. The method preferably includes receiving the alert at a receiving mechanism, where the receiving mechanism is an email receiver, a web message center, a wireless telephone, a land line telephone, an SMS messaging device, a pager, a personal digital assistant, a broadcast receiver, or a voice mailbox. The sensing senses at least one of light, pressure, weight, capacitance, magnetism, hall effect, float position, heat, temperature, motion, and sound. The sensor unit preferably includes a flexible circuit board. The sensor unit is preferably associated with a unique address. Preferably, the providing includes providing the alert consistent with data representing an email address, a pager address, a personal digital assistant address, a cellular phone number, a call center address, or a web site URL. The sensing preferably includes sensing at least one property of the object or fluid. The property is preferably size, shape, weight, dielectric properties, magnetic properties, or volume.
Other exemplary embodiments and advantages of the present invention may be ascertained by reviewing the present disclosure and the accompanying drawings.